1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and to a metering apparatus, and in particular relates to a semiconductor device including an oscillation circuit containing an oscillator, and to a metering apparatus containing such a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been growing interest recently into “smart meters” that are implement by adding a high performance communication function to a meter, such as electricity, gas or water meter, so as to perform automatic reading and various types of service. With smart meters, various management and control functions are performed whilst ascertaining consumer usage history of electricity, gas or water in real time. Development is accordingly proceeding into meters that have an in-built semiconductor device with a time measurement function that accurately logs times irrespective of the environment in which the meter is installed. Semiconductor devices that have a time measurement function are generally configured to include an oscillator, an oscillation circuit that is connected to the oscillator, and a timer circuit that generates a timing signal of a specific frequency from an output signal of the oscillator. The oscillation circuit and the timer circuit are formed in the semiconductor integrated circuit.
As a semiconductor device with an oscillator and a semiconductor chip with an oscillation circuit connected to the oscillator in-built in the same package, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2009-213061 describes using external terminals provided on an outer face of a vibrator and disposing the vibrator on one face of a wiring board, and disposing a semiconductor chip that is connected to the vibrator to cause it to oscillate disposed on the one face of the wiring board, alongside the vibrator. A resin molding member is then provided on the one face of the wiring board so as to cover the semiconductor chip.
There is also a circuit device described in JP-A No. 2010-34094 that is equipped with an IC chip that includes an oscillator, and a circuit section that configures an oscillation circuit for electrical connection to the oscillator. In this circuit device, the oscillator has plural electrodes, and there are plural oscillator pads corresponding to the plural electrodes of the IC chip, and the oscillator is electrically connected to the plural oscillator pads on the IC chip by its plural electrodes facing towards the plural oscillator pads on the IC chip through an Anisotropic Conductive Film (ACF).